reedster

here i go again

so i recognize that again, i've failed to keep this updated. some of you know what i'm about to write but many will not. its a bit exciting but its a perfect picture of crazy trinco. thats why i love the place and why it makes me so frustrated at times. enjoy

first i will start of will the trip that katie and i took to batticaloa. its a city thats about three hours south of trincomalee but cuz of the roads it takes six or seven. it was tired so like usual i was sleeping or tryin to cuz our van had literally no shocks and katie was staying amused at how well my patience was being tested. tested not kept. ;) we had been behind a military convoy, a bus, two pickups and a SLMM [sri lanka monitor mission, regulate the cease fire] for a number of hours when all of a sudden the road exploded. the LTTE, the rebels, attacked the convoy with a roadside bomb. we were only 100m from the convoy! it was crazy and we felt the concussion in our van. i'll include the pix of the road that has a huge hole in it. all that to say, we're fine, i dont recall about hearing any injuries from the blast, the blew it off a lil to early i think. but still crazy...

after a weekend in batti and then a week in colombo for meetings and taking katie to the airport. i was back in trinco. the new development was that we have our vehicle now! a crew cab...its ugly but its great to have a car. i'll show you pix of that too.

but trinco on the other hand is its same crazy ol' self. just when i thought i'd get sum work done trinco decided to start protesting. to start it off, this last sunday four LTTE cadres were shot by the SLA [sri lankan army]. that lead to two days of mourning and retaliation from the tamil ppl. on monday i was on my way to the field do sum work when we were forced to pull over and let the bodies of the dead LTTE guys pass. they were having public showings for the funeral. we had to wait there for a lil while cuz they were washing the road in their respect afterwards. so interesting.

this was the ignition. since then theres been tire burning, occasional grenades and sporadic gunfire. most of it aimed at the SLA or the LTTE depending on which site you're on. tuesday was hartal, day of protests, so i ended up on the beach and was able to even out my tan a bit. yes that is true, and i got caught up on my reports. wierd city i live in...

today there wasnt a hartal but there was continual violence. two grenades were discharged, injuring two army dudes, ten minutes after i was at the local market. makes you rethink where you go...and how you travel. we have our own vehicle so its pretty good now. they arent attacking the international aid community which is nice but you dont want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. or oops... so now that i've probably painted a pretty scary pic of what the city is like, it really isnt that bad. or u just get use to all of it. you hate it, cuz it hurts the community and hinders the work but then you realize this is life in the majority of the world. forget pleasentville n. america. thats an illusion that we all convince ourselves we live in. life is difficult for 90% of the world. thats a fact...

another fact is that our office staff ran up a 5500 SLR phone bill while i was in colombo for the week. thats like$55. not to much but considering that our monthly phone bill is usually 4200 SLR it was pretty big. one week was more than one month. hmm so i sat them down and talked to them. its was funny cuz they denied any phone calls that would amount to that. so the phone company is giving me our complete records so that i can figure out who exactly is responsible. i found this out cuz they disconnected our phone line due to nonpayment. this is a big black mark on three ppl who were on their last chance with us. the head office has asked me to politely fire three of our staff. i convinced them to give them one more chance. this might have been it...or its been the last drop in the bucket. it makes you feel bad. for all but one of the guys. he just has a rotten attitude. but hey, we all do at times. so yes, trinco trinco trinco. i love it. its never the same, its lots of fun but its making go prematurely bald. oh, wait, thats the genes. its at least testing my character and patience.

but hey, all things are possible through God and that is a good thing.

ciao

posted by reedster @ 18:57